Chapter 7

Chapter 6: The Watcher

As soon as they left the casino, Su Jing collapsed, but fortunately Xu Jianfeng quickly caught him.

"Nearest hospital. Get me a blood transfusion. Type O." Su Jing managed to say this before fainting.

Xu Jianfeng felt the white chocolate in his pocket, which was almost melted, sighed deeply, and hoisted Su Jing onto his shoulder, walking towards the taxi waiting at the casino entrance.

"………………"

"………………"

Outside the window, it was dusk. Su Jing lay on the hospital bed, looking at Xu Jianfeng sitting beside him.

"How long have I been out... Damn, do you have any water..." Su Jing realized his throat was so dry it felt like it was about to crack. Xu Jianfeng tossed him a bottle of mineral water.

Su Jing unscrewed the cap with his right hand, wincing at the IV needle on his hand.

"What happened to your left hand? Did you cut it yourself?" Xu Jianfeng lit a cigarette, then stubbed it out after a moment's thought. "The doctor said you lost too much blood. Another 600cc and you would have died."

"Uh... everyone has their secrets..." Su Jing gulped down half the bottle of water and pressed the call button for the nurse to remove the IV. The silver demon bug, which had been lying on the metal railing by the bed, seemed to notice its master was awake and flew back to Su Jing's left eye.

In fact, Su Jing didn't just let the demon bug evolve once that night. Based on his experiments at the gambling table, the demon bug, after only one enhancement of its information-gathering ability, couldn't directly see through the cards. It could only faintly see a bit of the back pattern, and very unclearly, at best it could determine if it was a face card.

With no other choice, Su Jing gritted his teeth, returned to the toilet, and continued cutting his wrist, using his own blood to stimulate the demon bug's evolution.

By the time he felt his vision start to blur and his thoughts become unclear, the demon bug had completed its third transformation.

For these three evolutions, Su Jing unhesitatingly chose to enhance the information-gathering ability each time.

Leaving the toilet, Su Jing endured the aftereffects of excessive blood loss, feeling weak, dizzy, and shivering with cold. He found a Dragon Tiger game, stood there for a few minutes to confirm the dealer's card sequence, and then joined the table.

Then came the miraculous two consecutive bets on "Tie," which quadrupled his chips in three minutes.

Both mentally and physically exhausted, Su Jing hadn't anticipated the severity of the consequences. Seeing Xu Jianfeng's face turn grim, he had a bad feeling.

"Old Xu... How long have I been in the hospital?"

"Three days." Xu Jianfeng peeled an orange from a plastic bag. "Can't you be more honest? What's going on with you?"

"This... It's related to my ability. According to our rules, you can ask, but..." Su Jing half-truthfully used a conspiracy theory to bluff Xu Jianfeng. "People with superpowers aren't just non-combat types like me; there are also specialized departments for cleaning up informants and disposing of bodies."

"Damn!" Xu Jianfeng swallowed the whole orange. "If I get involved with you, isn't that dangerous?"

"Don't worry... Usually, no one cares that much."

When Su Jing was discharged, the sky was already approaching dusk. He couldn't help but smile bitterly, as his recent days had been completely upside down, his biological clock in chaos, yet his mental state was unusually excited. He wasn't sure if it was because he particularly enjoyed the feeling of being on the brink of life and death, or if this life, driven by the threat of death, really suited him.

To be honest, Su Jing wasn't that reckless, but Xu Jianfeng had been subtly watching him. If he couldn't win a large sum on the first night, Xu Jianfeng's trust in him would plummet. If he thought Su Jing was lying, who knows what a violent person who had bet everything on Su Jing would do.

Even without Xu Jianfeng, the World Core was watching. He could deceive Xu Jianfeng, but not the World Core...

After three days in the hospital, Su Jing checked his phone. Seven days, and it was already the fifth day.

"Let's go back to the hotel first. I need to shower and change clothes, then we'll continue tonight."

"Don't you need to rest? You still look pretty bad."

"No worries, Crazy Xu." Su Jing stretched his stiff neck. "I've been lying still for three days, it's time to stretch and warm up."

"Don't call me Crazy, I think you're the one who's crazy."

Neither of them noticed that when they returned to the New Century Hotel, two men were sitting on the sofas in the lobby, one of whom was asleep, the other staring idly at the entrance.

When Su Jing and Xu Jianfeng entered the hotel, the one who wasn't sleeping perked up, kicked the sleeping one awake, and whispered:

"Look, it's Crazy Xu."

The one who was woken up wiped the drool from his mouth, pulled out his phone, and made a call.

"Hey, Big Brother Li, we've found Xu Jianfeng. When do we move? Should we go up now..."

"Are you out of your mind! This is Macau, not our territory! Can you think before you speak and act!" The voice on the other end of the phone scolded him, and the caller had to agree meekly, saying that Big Brother Li's lesson was well taken and that he would learn from it.

After the scolding, the voice on the other end said:

"Don't alarm him, don't tip him off. Continue to watch and figure out their habits. We'll move tomorrow night. We've waited this long, a couple more days won't matter. Report any findings immediately."

"Got it, got it..." After hanging up, the caller sighed heavily. "Damn, Li Qingdong, you come here for a vacation and leave us to do all the dirty work... We've been here for two days, and we still don't know where he's been... It's a rare trip to Macau, but we have to sit here and read newspapers..."

"..."

The other man just rolled his eyes, not bothering to respond.

After showering and changing, Su Jing and Xu Jianfeng continued to the Babylon Casino... or rather, to win money.

At first, Xu Jianfeng suggested they change casinos, saying it was too risky to keep winning at the same place, and if they were recognized, they couldn't do much on their turf. Su Jing said it was fine, his cheating skills were undetectable, and he preferred to gamble at a familiar place. The Babylon Casino was big and wouldn't mind a few million.

The 3.64 million chips they won three nights ago were not cashed in, as per their agreement. They would split 50-50, win 50 million, and then stop. Each would get 25 million.

Xu Jianfeng wanted to ask why they couldn't win 100 million, 200 million, or even a billion, since no one would complain about having too much money.

"I'm a rule-follower," Su Jing said, munching on white chocolate. "50 million is the limit for using my ability. Any more, and there will be trouble."

Xu Jianfeng looked confused.

"You wouldn't understand. Just help me look tough and wait for the money." Su Jing waved his hand dismissively.

"Okay, okay..."

That night, Su Jing's ability worked very smoothly. Besides winning over 2 million in Dragon Tiger and Baccarat, he also played two hours of Blackjack, or 21.

Blackjack is known as the game with the highest player win rate in the casino, always popular. Although it doesn't appear as often in gambling movies as Texas Hold'em, Su Jing personally preferred this game with its cooler name and simpler rules.

With the demon bug's透视 (透视 means "透视" in Chinese, which translates to "X-ray vision" or "see-through" in English) assistance, Su Jing's win rate consistently stayed above 70%. That night, he bet cautiously, mostly using 100,000 denomination blue chips, leaving the three 1 million denomination gold chips untouched.

"Blackjack. Double the bet, thank you."

The dealer used a small stick to push two blue chips towards Su Jing, adding them to the one already on the table. These small discs, no more than two centimeters in diameter, represented a year's salary for an average person.

Su Jing examined the blue plastic chip in his hand. The image from the demon bug showed an anti-counterfeiting electronic signal generator inside. Switching the demon bug to infrared vision, he saw transparent barcodes on both sides of the chip.

Not just the chips, but every deck of cards and every die in the casino had similar anti-counterfeiting measures.

The World Core's task was to acquire property worth 10 million. In theory, if he could forge identical chips, he could complete the task...

Unfortunately, he didn't have that ability, and Su Jing smiled faintly.

If he had drawn a prize to enhance his combat ability, he might still be planning a bank robbery. Such a dangerous action would be a hundred times more risky than what he was doing now, but that would be a different story.

He couldn't deny that he liked violence, pure and absolute violence, but making money this way was safer. Finding loopholes in the system to profit was more elegant and efficient than robbing a bank.

Besides... deceiving people, making them spin around...

It felt great.

"Old Xu, I want an ice cream cone. And three more bars of white chocolate."

"Always eating, you're not afraid of getting too sweet. What's so good about white chocolate, you're not a gambling god like Gao Jin... You're just pretending..."

"What do you have against white chocolate? It's the perfect snack, only hazelnut chocolate, fresh egg tarts, and cold double-layer milk can barely match it. If I had to choose, I'd still pick white chocolate. That rich milk aroma..."

Xu Jianfeng sighed and turned to buy snacks.

"I'll bet 500,000."

Su Jing flexed his wrist, took two blue chips from the paper bag, and placed them with the previous 300,000 chips in front of him.

——————————————

"Mr. Chen, Mr. Chen."

"Hmm? What is it?"

"According to the surveillance, the computer detected something unusual with the chip flow. We suspect someone might be cheating."

In the surveillance room, a man sitting in a swivel chair, playing a game on his phone, turned around.

He had a name tag on his chest.

Senior Technical Advisor: Chen Changqing.

[End of Chapter 6]